HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE - Fichier PDF

360-degree feedback ❚ 523●●23 per cent used it to support a number of HR processes such as appraisal,resourcing and succession planning;6 per cent used it to support pay decisions.A 1997 survey by the Performance Management Group (unpublished) of 22 organizationsusing 360-degree feedback found that:● 77 per cent either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement that it is ’apersonal development tool and should not be used for wider HR or organizationalpurposes’;● 81 per cent disagreed or strongly disagreed that ’the natural use of 360-degreefeedback is to provide a basis for reward’.The research conducted by Armstrong and Baron (1998) for the IPD also found thatthe 51 organizations covered by the research predominantly used 360-degree feedbackto help in assessing development needs, and as a basis for performancecoaching. Only one-fifth of the respondents used it to determine a performance gradeor pay award.RATIONALE FOR 360-DEGREE FEEDBACKThe main rationale for 360-degree feedback has been expressed by Turnow (1993) asfollows:360-degree activities are usually based on two key assumptions: (1) that awareness ofany discrepancy between how we see ourselves and how others see us increases selfawareness,and (2) that enhanced self-awareness is a key to maximum performance as aleader, and thus becomes a foundation block for management and leadership developmentprogrammes.London and Beatty (1993) have suggested that the justification for 360-degree feedbackis as follows:●●360-degree feedback can become a powerful organizational intervention toincrease awareness of the importance of aligning leader behaviour, work unitresults and customer expectations, as well as increasing employee participation inleadership development and work unit effectiveness.360-degree feedback recognizes the complexity of management and the value ofinput from various sources – it is axiomatic that managers should not be assessing